


Make It Better

by thirdtimecharmed



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Domestic, Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-11 02:45:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirdtimecharmed/pseuds/thirdtimecharmed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas' adopted daughter has a nightmare, and has to run to her daddy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make It Better

**Author's Note:**

> Entirely inspired by Ask Domestic Destiel on Tumblr (http://askdomesticdestiel.tumblr.com/) but I couldn't resist Enjoy!

            Another fire, but this one’s at her new house, and it’s burning everything _again,_ even though isn’t touching her. She’s fine- but her bed is turning to ashes and so is the bear her uncle Sam won for her, and she runs out into the tiny hallway because she knows, she just knows. She hollers at the top of her lungs and shakes them both but they won’t wake up, they won’t, even as the fire curls around the top of the door and into the bed and daddy’s hair burns, papa burns, their comforter catches as well. All she can do is watch. Curled up at the end of their bed as flame licks around her without hurting, she can only watch as her family goes up in smoke. Again.

            She gasps herself awake curled up in her own bed, with her feet on the pillow and the blankets all tangled. It’s dark, quiet, normal, but she still sees fire when she closes her eyes, and it’s a long time before her breathing relaxes.

            Her bare feet pad on the boards, and she jumps at every shadow- sometimes the being afraid doesn’t go away on its own. Of course, waking daddy up is the hardest part of it all. She’s too big for this, too old, she tells herself, at four whole years. Nothing should scare her.

            Hesitantly, she slips the door open a crack, and gently shakes his shoulder.

            “Daddy?” she practically whispers, her voice a worried plea. There’s still a part of her brain that worries it was all real. As she shakes him, she wonders if he’ll ever wake up again.

            Dean barely feels the tug on his shoulder, but he’d recognize his daughter’s voice from the other side of space. Still, it takes him a little to start firing on all pistons. First an incoherent mumble, then a slight lift of his head, and finally he pushes himself up, rubs his eyes, and regards the tiny figure in front of him.

            “Yeah?” he croaks, although in the back of his mind he already knows, “You ok Zep?”

            “I…” she hesitates, suddenly sheepish at being afraid of anything, “I had a bad dream.”

            “Oh,” and his face is instantly sympathetic. He gets out of bed, leaving Castiel to roll all the sheets over to his own side. He offers his hand to her, but she’s already clinging to his leg, so he splits the difference and picks her up, holding her to his side with one arm.

            “You’re getting big, kiddo,” he grins at her, but she just hides her face in his shoulder. It was a bad one, then. Planting a kiss on the top of her head, he carries her the short way to her bedroom, and plonks down at the head of her bed.

            She settles onto his lap, relaxing bit by bit as her bedside lamp glows and daddy’s familiar smell of detergent and cheap soap envelops her.

            “Do you wanna tell me about it?” he asks her, after a bit, his voice still clouded with sleep. At first, she shakes her head twice, and he makes a grunt of acceptance, stroking her hair gently. The story is bubbling behind her lips, and seared in her brain. It aches to pull free and spill out of her. She fights it the whole way. Still, her father’s silent presence, his arms around her and his hand working through her hair, slowly erodes all of her resolve. She relents, and tells him what he already knew.

            “There was a fire, again” she said, and he squeezes her closer. He remembers the day more clearly than she does. The heat. The screaming. The demon he’s never sure she didn’t see. “And it didn’t hurt me, but you and daddy were…” she trails off with a high pitched choke, and he lets her.

            She hadn’t realized how much it had been eating at her, but once she confesses, it all feels much better. The silence is more comfortable as they wait out the wee hours of the night.

            “Zep,” Dean says unexpectedly, “Don’t you think for one minute that I’d let myself get burnt up and leave you. Your papa wouldn’t either. Y’hear?”

            Her wide eyes bore up into his, and if she were older and able to understand, she’d see the memories that Dean can’t let go of. She’d know about Dean’s own nightmares, the ones he choked down in cheap motel rooms, the ones that replayed the night that his old life burnt away. But she doesn’t see any of this. All she sees are the steadfast eyes of her father, and she trusts him immediately.

            “Ok,” she nods with a weak smile, and Dean gives her a meaningful nod back.

            “Good,” he says, and with that, he starts humming.

            It isn’t a song he uses often, but it is the most effective. It’s the song that got her to smile at him in the early days, where she wouldn’t talk or make eye contact, and she barely ate. Her head nuzzles into her daddy’s chest while Dean is lost in a sea of memories as he starts to sing.

_Hey Jude  
_

_Don't make it bad_

_Take a sad song_

_And make it better_

_Remember_

_To let her into your heart_

_Then you can start_

_To make it better._

            The next morning, he wakes up with his feet dangling off the end of her bed as she still snores softly, nestled in the crook of his arm. They’re both tucked in, and he chuckles as he realizes that Cas must’ve been in sometime this morning. He decides his work can wait, and when Zep wakes up, he burns them both pancakes for breakfast. 


End file.
